Saturday, August 22, 2009

August 16, 2009-Condor of Bermuda (update)

Some boats are iconic. Condor of Bermuda is one of those: beautiful dark mahogany and with yellow trim and condor on the transom; you can't mistake this vessel from any other and even of you've only seen it in photos you never forget it.

I spotted Condor of Bermuda in Yacht Haven the first day I arrived there. The boat is sitting quietly on B dock under a full cover, still stunning and still memorable.

It is one of the more famous racing boats from the IOR era.

Condor of Bermuda was designed by John Sharp for Bob Bell, who still owns her, and was built in the late 70's. It was an awesome and powerful yacht and it was successful right from the early days.

In 1979 Bell entered Condor in the Fastnet Race. Peter Blake was steering and with a crew of mostly Kiwi's they had high hopes. Their main competition were Jim Kilroy's Kialoa and Ted Turner's Tenacious and with a new rig on Condor, 10 feet taller than previous, they were eager at the start to compare their speed with the other two, but it was the weather that year that presented the biggest challenge.

Fastnet 1979, as we know, was a brutal race with a deadly and unexpected weather system which hit the fleet sailing across the Irish Sea. It wreaked havoc on the fleet, tossing boats like toys, breaking masts and rudders, and killing sailors; 15 lives were lost and several boats were abandoned or sank.

But on board Condor of Bermuda they were focused on dealing with the severe conditions in which it took all of their seamanship to be able to keep pushing the boat and push they did. Condor was first to finish in the 1979 Fastnet Race and the crew celebrated, ecstatic to have survived the carnage on the Irish Sea and to have finished first.

“We yelled and and danced, shook hands and slapped backs and laughed and smiled. Line Honours – The Record – beaten Kialoa. Perhaps even first on handicap. We put it all aside and began to stow the sails. Our time – 71 Hours 37 Minutes and 23 Seconds. We had beaten the previous record by over seven hours.” Chris Windley

Here is a quote from Sports Illustrated:

BOATING—In the most tragic race in yachting history, CONDOR OF BERMUDA, skippered by Bob Bell of Bermuda, set a course record for the Fastnet leg of the Admiral's Cup. The 77-foot sloop finished in 71:25:23, nearly eight hours faster than the old mark. TENACIOUS, with Ted Turner of Atlanta at the helm, won on corrected time in 79:52:22. Fifteen sailors died and 23 of the 306 boats in the race either sank or were abandoned when heavy rains, 75-knot winds and 40-foot waves battered the southwest coast of England.

Click here to read the rest of the story from on board by Chris Windley.

Next Condor headed down under. Peter and his new wife Pippa sailed the boat to the South Pacific as sort of a honeymoon cruise and in 1982 Condor of Bermuda entered the Sydney to Hobart race.

In the closest Hobart race ever in 1982 Condor of Bermuda beat Apollo by 7 seconds, finishing in 3 days and 59 minutes 17 seconds. They came back in 1983 for another first-to-finish in 3:00:50:29 and again in 1986 they were first in an even faster 2:23:26:25.

In 1986 they travelled to the Atlantic and sailed in the Newport to Bermuda Race and again took line honors.

After 1986 Condor of Bermuda dropped out of the international limelight a bit, but the boat continued to sail. There were other episodes including an encounter with a reef in French Polynesia and a subsequent rebuild.

Somehow, after all these years, Condor of Bermuda wound up in Phuket Thailand, still sailing, and still beautiful.

PS: A later "Condor" designed by Ron Holland and built out of Carbon, Kevlar, and balsa at Kiwi Boats Penryn UK, (sort of an odd international combination, I agree, but that's what the available information says) was the first sloop rigged maxi IOR boat. At 77 feet, with a tall four spreader rig and huge sail area, and is now sailing in the Whitsundays.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

July 31, 2009-Photos from Thailand

We've done some touring around the Bangkok area while we've been staying in Thailand. One weekend Andy and Nita came down from Hong Kong and we rented a little Bimmer and drove to Hua Hin. The town isn't much but we found a very nice and elegant hotel there and saw some pretty sights on the drive back when we stopped at the Khoa Wang temple. This temple on a hill-top was once one of the the homes of the King of Thailand. Even on a very hot day in July the King's house at Khao Wang was cool and breezy.

About Me

Two people: Fred & Judy , drawn to each other and yet somehow drawn also to the sea, and both intrigued by the idea of living aboard.
I saw her, blond and asymmetrical, beautiful, boarding another’s boat and I followed her and wooed her, or she wooed me. That was 1985 and we fell in love and we thought that to buy a boat and make a life together on the water was only natural.
So we did.
Fate.
The boat was WINGS.
For the next ten years we lived on Wings in Seattle, had jobs in the city, sailed every chance we got, and 40-50 times a year, went racing. It was great.
Then we left Seattle and began our cruising life. We voyaged across the world, across the seven seas, to faraway places, and made them our own.
Wings was our home, and is still, and we lived wherever the sea met the land and people welcomed us, as they did everywhere.
For twenty-five years we’ve lived this life, and more to come, we hope.
Join us now, and sail the seas.
Fred Roswold & Judy Jensen, SV Wings, Caribbean